


Caught You

by StarlightAfterAStorm



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy/Steve Holiday Fic/Art Exchange, F/M, Snowball Fight, mentions of Jane Foster/Thor - Freeform, mentions of Tony Stark/Pepper Potts - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAfterAStorm/pseuds/StarlightAfterAStorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy has a plan. Really, she does. But puppy dog pouts and the lure of a snowball fight just happens to de-rail them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScratchPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScratchPen/gifts).



> For ScratchPen. I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT. I've been dealing with some personal health issues. It doesn't excuse me. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Prompts used: Making cookies and Snowball Fight

Darcy knows she’s being sneakily suspicious. And she knows everyone in the Tower has taken interest. Especially the one person she wanted to stay out of it the most. _The boyfriend._

“I’m sorry Steve! I’ve got something planned for today. I’ll see you at dinner?” Is all she leaves him with as she speeds around the corner after breakfast. She feels bad about it, really she does. But she really needs to get her surprise done before dinner tonight and she’s only barely started. 

Morning of Christmas Eve and she still needs to make all of the cookies and go buy frosting but at least she had the foresight to buy most of the ingredients in bulk and in advance. 

Darcy is on a mission. A mission to make the best damn Avengers cookies for Christmas. She figured they deserved something special after a year of alien invasions and super villains and putting up with Tony. 

In her tiny apartment in a small corner of what is supposed to be Thor’s wing, which has now become Thor and Jane’s wing, Darcy has stockpiled the essential ingredients for gingerbread cookies.

Humming softly to herself, Darcy spends and hour mixing ingredients and rolling out the dough before she’s interrupted by a knock on the door. 

Quickly wiping flour off her hands, Darcy holds the door open just wide enough to poke her head out. 

“What do you want Birdbrain?”

“Aw Chickadee, is that really the best way to greet a friend Merry Christmas?”

Clint looks at her insulted and with a pout on his face.

“Nice try, but Steve’s puppy dog pout is leagues better than yours and he can’t get away with anything. I’m immune. Now what do you want?”

Clint rolls his eyes, dropping the act. 

“Just came by to see if you wanted to join the snowball fight going on soon. Your boy’s been complaining about how it’s the holidays and you’ve shut yourself in. He’s _worrying_.” 

Clint rolls his eyes again, knowing full well that Steve’s overreacting. 

“Shit.” 

Darcy’s torn. She _adores_ snow and she _loves_ snowball fights. She grew up in southern California where hail only shows up every 10 years and practically turns to rain as soon as it starts. The abundance of fluffy white snow that’s ben falling the past few weeks has her enthralled. Looking back to her dough, waiting to be cut out and sent into the oven, she makes a decision. 

“Give me like a half hour ok? Can you guys do that? I gotta do something real quick.”

Clint’s eyes look at her knowingly and Darcy is reminded of just how accurate his codename is. She can’t get nothing past him. But he doesn’t say anything other than, “I’ll stall for time. Hurry up or Stark’ll come get you. And he’ll want to taste test.”

Darcy knows it’s not the prep or the baking that’s gonna take her the longest. It’s the decorating. But still, she furiously whips up a second batch of cookies and puts both batches in the oven for 15 minutes. 

Racing into her bedroom, Darcy throws on an insulated pair of jeans over her leggings, stuffs her feet into the thickest and fuzziest pair of socks she has and throws on her favorite horrible Christmas sweater. It’s bright green with pink peppermint stripes on the collar and cuffs and Santa heads with fuzzy beards. 

“Ok, Darce, now you just gotta find your gloves. And the cookies’ll be fine. You’ll leave them out to cool and they’ll be fine. You can afford to go out for an hour or two.” The clock on her mantle stares at her. 10:43 it says. 

“You’ve got plenty of time. You can afford an hour or two and besides you need to go to the store and get frosting anyways.”

While she’s talking to herself and digging through her drawers for her gloves, Darcy hears the beep of the oven going off. She rushes over to take them out and put them onto cooling racks. She’s got just over 4 dozen generic gingerbread cookies, rolled thickly so they’ve stayed soft and moist instead of crunchy and cracker-like. Leaving them out to cool while she goes out to play, Darcy finds her gloves and grabs her big puffy snow jacket. The last thing she does before shutting the door behind her is to break an arm off of one of the less pretty cookies and sample her work. 

Everyone seems to have congregated to the common floor which has lovingly been deemed “The Family Area”. Seeing Steve sitting in one of the comfy armchairs talking to Natasha, Darcy makes her way over and settles herself comfortably in his lap.

Steve grins and snuggles her closer even as he keeps up his conversation with Natasha. 

“...but we always managed to scrape enough together.”

Natasha nods in sad understanding and Darcy knows Steve’s been talking about childhood Christmases from another era. She presses a soft kiss to his shoulder to try and offer some comfort. Natasha smiles at Darcy before leaving them to go and join Bruce and Jane’s conversation. 

“You smell like cinnamon and ginger.” Steve murmurs against her softly before giving her a real kiss. “Taste like it too.”

Darcy smiles into the kiss and doesn’t say anything in reply once it’s over. Just puts her fingers to her lips for secrecy. 

“All right lovebirds! Let’s go!” Tony’s voice cuts through their little bubble and Steve huffs softly at the intrusion before springing himself onto his feet with Darcy still in his arms. 

“Like you’re any better Stark.”

“Hey, I’ll let you know, my lady and I are always considerate of others. We never give in to such uncouth public displays of affection. Really Rogers, shame on you.”

Pepper pulls Tony into a kiss just to shut him up and he smiles like an idiot the whole way to the park. 

“So how are we doing this? A big old free-for-all? Or capture the flag?” Darcy’s excited for this. Her first snowball fight. She wouldn’t care either way but she wants to start on some strategy. 

“I say capture the flag.”

“But there’s 9 of us! I’m on the team with 5 people!”

“Don’t worry Tony, I’m not playing. I’m just here for support and hot chocolate.”

“But Pep!”

Darcy grins and links her arm through Steve’s.

“I call Steve and Tasha!”

“What? That’s not even fair Lewis! I say girls vs guys!”

“Are you kidding me Stark? That’s so boring! Especially for you.” 

Clint intercedes on what is building up to be a spectacular clashing of Lewis vs Stark: Round 120. 

“How about we choose teams, but no couple gets to be on the same team?”

“Fine by me.”

Darcy quickly plaits her hair and pins it back and out of her face, “But I still get Tasha. And Thor.”

“Waitaminute, Lewis. You can’t stick me with Foster.”

“Um, Hey! Standing right here you know.”

“I don’t care Stark. I want Tasha. and since I’ve got Tasha you’ve got Steve _and_ Clint. You can’t get Thor on top of that.”

“She has a point Tony.”

“Fine. But I don’t like that you get Fabio _and_ Super Spy _and_ Banner.”

“Tough nuggets. Here.” Darcy reaches over to tug at his scarf. There’s an awkward struggle while she threatens him to let her have his scarf and he refuses before finally giving in. Taking off her own scarf and handing it to him, she announces, 

“There. We’ve got our flags. Any rules before going in?”

Steve steps in here, ever the soldier ready to take command.

“We keep ourselves within a mile radius. That rock over there can serve as the midpoint and we each branch out and mark out territory a half mile on each side. We arm ourselves with snowballs and anyone getting caught on the enemy side or hit with a snowball on enemy side has to return to their territory after being held captive for 5 minutes. If they’ve somehow got the flag and are hit or caught, they have to return it. Any questions?”

Everyone stares and he starts a little as he realizes what he’s done. Darcy tries and fails to suppress a grin. She loves it when he takes charge.

“No questions, Captain.” She reaches forward and gives him a lingering kiss. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

With one last saucy wink, she turns around and sprints in the opposite direction where her team has already headed out. 

They walk nearly to the end of their allotted half mile before claiming a small copse of trees as their “headquarters”. Darcy giggles with unholy glee, feeling 12 years old, as they build a fort and start to manufacture snow balls. Natasha takes their flag and, with a boost from Thor, climbs the highest tree closest to them, and tying it to the top. 

They all agree that Natasha and Darcy should be the ones to go and storm in. Clint probably will stay on the enemy’s side in order to be their sharpshooter, but they might also send him in because he’s the only one who can take Natasha. Leaving Bruce behind to keep making snowballs and Thor to protect him and the flag is the safest bet. 

Natasha’s the best out of all of them so she’ll be going of course, but if they’ve sent Steve out, Darcy is their best bet at distracting him. 

A plan formed, the two women warily head out into the battlefield. 

“Do you really think they left Clint to guard?”

“Likely. He’s the only one who can really challenge me and they’ll know I’m coming to him. Stark would also be a good defender but he needs to be in the middle of the action. Same as Steve. Jane’s probably been sent over in order to distract Thor too.”

“Hmm. I know Jane’s got him wrapped around her little finger, but I don’t think he’ll let her get away with it. And a the very least, Bruce is there to get her if she does.”

Natasha nods in acceptance before her head twists sharply to the side and her eyes narrow in concentration. 

They’ve come just past the open space and the large rock that marks the halfway line between the two sides. She pulls Darcy with her behind a tree before climbing up to get a better look.

Darcy tries to make herself as small as possible, thankful that her snow jacket is white and sort of blends in. She can hear Tony and Steve bickering. 

“Seriously Stark! You’re making so much noise!”

“Oh, like you aren’t Rogers? Wait, what was that?”

Darcy smothers a giggle as Natasha uses one of the oldest distraction methods in the book and throws a small rock in the opposite direction. 

Tony chases after the sound. Steve groans but goes after him.

“We’ve got you now!” echoes slightly in the distance.

Natasha jumps down lightly, shaking her head. 

“That man is five years old.”

“I know right? You go ahead. Go get the flag and I’ll stay here and distract Steve.”

Sharing a nod, the two women part ways. As Natasha heads closer to the flag, Darcy silently stalks Steve.

Apparently, he’s lost Tony.

She grins and keeps a good distance behind him, noticing how he stays _just_ on the edge of his side of the rock. Deciding to just go for it anyway, Darcy leans down to grab some snow. 

Making a snowball if harder than she thinks it is, however, and while she’s trying to pack the snow into some semblance of a ball, the thump of a snowball exploding on the tree next to her startles her. Looking up, she can see Steve’s grinning face not 10 feet away.

“Shit!”

Running as fast as she can, she barely manages to make it the 5 feet past the rock onto her own side before she’s swept up by powerful arms. 

“Well, it looks like I’ve caught you Miss Lewis.” 

Turning around to face Steve, Darcy locks her arms around his neck and takes in the wide smile and his flushed face. 

Darcy says she loves a lot of things. She loves cookies. She loves the snow. She loves working as Pepper Potts’ PA. 

But the thing she loves most?

When Steve’s this happy. 

“I don’t think so, Captain. Y’see we’re on my side now. I think that means I’ve caught _you_.”

Going on to her tippy-toes, Darcy brushes her mouth against his in a whisper of a kiss, reveling in the way his dimples deepen and his eyes sparkle before he leans in to kiss her properly.

“I think, Miss Lewis, that you caught me a long time ago.”

They stay like that, completely out in the open, kissing and not paying any attention to anything else when they hear a roar of rage. Swiveling their heads in opposite directions, they can see Thor and Bruce chasing Jane and Tony on one side with Clint chasing Natasha on the other side. 

Darcy quickly scoops up some snow without even bothering to pack it and hits Tony square in the face. 

“Lewis! What the hell!”

But he manages to pass off the scarf in his hands to Jane who keeps running. 

Natasha picks up speed and makes a flying leap onto the rock, before somersaulting squarely onto their side.

“UGH!” Jane collapses in a undignified heap right before Darcy’s feet. “We were so damned close! Clint, you couldn’t have distracted her for 30 more seconds?”

Natasha grins smugly as Clint responds in the negative.

“Forget the Hawk over there. Rogers? What the hell? You couldn’t have helped out at all? What’s the point of having a strategist on our team.” 

Tony collapses where he is as well and the whole group just decide to follow suit. 

“He couldn’t have helped anyway, Stark. He was my prisoner.” Darcy pulls Steve closer for another kiss.

“Yeah, like he needed a lot of persuading for that.” Tony mumbles. 

“How about another round then?” Steve suggests, “To let our team try and win back some honor?”

Darcy bites her lip, thinking about her cookies on the counter and her plan for them when Pepper and Happy show up with extra large thermos’s full of hot chocolate. Steve takes her hand while everyone else agrees to another round after hot cocoa and a quick lunch. 

Darcy can only nod her head in reply. It’s not that big of a deal. The cookies can always be decorated tomorrow or eaten tonight without any frosting. 

And maybe in the next round, she can convince Steve to try and catch her a few more times. 


End file.
